I'll add this as an added advanced tip of sorts.
Place the Pickaxe in an active slot. Put any weapon in your other slot. Press 'B' to change to your weapon. Press 'A' to pull up the attack cursor. Press 'B' again which will change to the pickaxe but leave the targeting cursor. Click target, gather resources.
May not be worth knowing to all, but I found it quite handy on saving my wrist lots of clicking back and forth. This effectively makes it towhere you can hold the cursor in one place and rock between 'B' and 'A' until you have to reposition due to resource exhaustion.
EDIT: It's worth knowing that this works for using Knives on plants, Hatchets on trees, and any other gathering you may try to do.